For upwards of an hour did the corporal lie reversed, when the day dawned, and the boat had been left high and dry upon the flat. The fishermen came down to examine their weir, and see what was their success, when they discovered the boat with its contents. At first they could not imagine what it was, for they could perceive nothing but the capacious round of the corporal, which rose up in the air, but, by degrees, they made out that there was a head and feet attached to it, and they contrived, with the united efforts of four men, to raise him up, and discovered that life was not yet extinct. They poured a little schnappes into his mouth, and he recovered so far as to open his eyes, and they having brought down with them two little carts drawn by dogs, they put the corporal into one, covered him up, and yoking all the dogs to the one cart, for the usual train could not move so heavy a weight, two of them escorted him up to their huts, while the others threw the fish caught into the cart which remained, and took possession of the boat. The fishermen's wives, perceiving the cart so heavily laden, imagined, as it approached the huts, that there had been unusual success, and were not a little disappointed when they found that instead of several bushels of fine fish, they had only caught a corporal of marines; but they were kind-hearted, for they had known misery, and Van Spitter was put into a bed, and covered up with all the blankets they could collect, and very soon was able to drink some warm soup offered to him. It was not, however, till long past noon, that the corporal was able to narrate what had taken place. "Will your lieutenant pay us for saving you and bringing him his boat?" demanded the men. Now, it must be observed, that a great revolution had taken place in the corporal's feelings since the horror and sufferings of the night. He felt hatred towards Vanslyperken, and good-will towards those whom he had treated unkindly. The supernatural appearance of Smallbones, in which he still believed, and which appeared to him as a warning--what he had suffered from cold and exhaustion, which by him was considered as a punishment for his treatment of the poor lad but the morning before, had changed the heart of Corporal Van Spitter, so he replied in Dutch, "He will give you nothing, good people, not even a glass of schnappes, I tell you candidly--so keep the boat if you wish--I will not say a word about it, except that it is lost. He is not likely to see it again. Besides, you can alter it, and paint it."